PRECOMPETITIVE COLLABORATIONS IN PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY - Collaborative Computational Technologies for Biomedical Research - page 57

TABLE 4.1 Comparison of Mechanisms to Explore More Open Approach to R & D
A patent pool is an agreement between two or more patent owners to license one or
more of their patents to one another or third parties. A patent pool allows
interested parties to gather all the necessary tools to practice a certain technology
in one place, e.g., “one-stop shopping,” rather than obtaining licenses from each
patent owner individually.
Precompetitive research consists of basic or applied research and can include part of
the development phase. At the precompetitive stage, research results are not
immediately marketable even thought they are the basic tools for creating new
products and processes.
Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated
agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefi ned, generally large
group of people in the form of an open call.
Creative commons —ownership is retained by the originator, but they allow others to
use the ideas/concepts/patents on the conditions the originator specifi es. In many
cases, there will be no rights and the information will be placed for free access in
the public domain.
Open source refers mainly to software that is distributed with its source code so that
end-user organizations and vendors can modify it for their own purposes. Most
open-source licences allow the software to be redistributed without restriction
under the same terms as the licence.
Open innovation is the use of targeted infl ows and outfl ows of knowledge across
organizational boundaries to accelerate internal innovation and to expand markets
for the external use of innovation.
ing the cost of failed compounds, is now in excess of $1 billion [3, 4]. For the
industry to remain fi nancially viable, either more compounds must make it to
the market or the industry has to fi nd ways to reduce the cost of failure. Both
of these approaches can benefi t from precompetitive collaboration. The major
causes of failure of compounds today are unexpected toxicity in animals and
humans and lack of effi cacy in early- or late-phase clinical studies. In order to
tackle these issues, the industry needs more predictive biomarkers for early
detection of toxicity as well as developing better technologies to ensure the
effi cient translation of early research into clinical effi cacy. In most cases no
one company has suffi cient data to be able to address these questions or
expend the time and fi nancial or other resources in developing these new
technologies and tools. Additionally, although companies still fund academic
centers, they are expecting a greater degree of value creation from such col-
laborations. Governments are also seeking greater signs of economic return
on their biomedical research funding, providing further stimuli to industry-
academic interaction. This academic-industry interface is the subject of a
subsequent chapter, but there are lessons to be learnt from precompetitive
collaborations which can apply to many types of collaborations. It is clear that
the more traditional model of companies doling out large sums of money
to academics and remaining distant from the subsequent science that the